


Friends Never Say Goodbye

by fanwritergirl9496



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Betrayal, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Family, Friendship, Other, Politics, Sibling Love, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 04:28:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5652460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanwritergirl9496/pseuds/fanwritergirl9496
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aang and Rukia met when they were both very young and became best friends, now that the war is finally over they've been reunited once more by Aang's role in an attempt to rebuild the honor of the fire nation. But when Zuko accidentally releases a murderer along with the war prisoners he puts Rukia's life, his friendship with Aang, and the future of the fire nation (possibly the world) at risk. Can they still find a way to work together and fix his mistake before everything they've fought for gets ripped to pieces?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. MIA or Dead?

**Author's Note:**

> Avatar Timeline: Aang's childhood, Just before he ran away, Just after he ran away, Air Nomad Massecre, Before The Day of Black Sun, 6th Months Post-War/winter after Ozai's defeat (present) 
> 
> Bleach Timeline: Rukia's Childhood, meeting renji, alternate tales of meeting Ichigo, her capture/execution, All characters are as they were right before the time skip but with Ichigo never having lost his powers.

Chapter 1:  MIA or Dead?

 

Katakura Town (not far from the Fire Nation Capital)

1 week before the Day of Black Sun

 

Renji and Ichigo were standing at the bottom of a grassy hill, it was right at sunset and they just stood there in their matching black kimonos staring out at the crystal blue water of the river in front of them. They had decided to come in their Shinigami forms so that most passers by wouldn’t be able to see or hear them. The two old friends were silent and didn’t look at each other. Ichigo knew that Renji had asked to meet here for a reason and he also had a pretty good guess as to what that was. Finally, after a few more minutes, he got tired of waiting for Renji to speak.

 

“Would you just spit it out already? I know what you want to ask me…” He blurted out.

 

“Is…is Rukia alright? I mean…she’s seemed pretty distant the last couple of days…” Renji asked worriedly. “I’ve asked her about it but I didn’t have any luck, seeing as how she seems to be more open than with you than she is with me I thought you might know what’s going on with her…” he admitted.

 

“I thought that might be it… anyway… the truth is that she felt _his_ spiritual pressure again… and she didn’t want to tell you because…” Ichigo stopped mid-sentance, Renji could be kind of a hot head, and he wasn't sure how to say it without making him defensive.

 

“Because why?” Renji demanded.

 

“Probably because she’s a little tired of being told that she’s crazy…” Ichigo snapped.

 

“I don’t think she’s crazy… I think her heart and mind want so desperately for him to be alive that she’s sensing a presence that isn’t there… I mean… you were there, she felt him leave, his spiritual pressure was extinguished and it was enough to make Rukia double over in pain and collapse… they announced his death the minute the prince and the princess got home…” Renji told him, remembering what happened.

 

“I know that… and it was right around then, a few weeks after his supposed death, that Rukia picked up on his spiritual pressure for the first time since…” Ichigo reminded him.

 

“Because the grief she was feeling recreated it, it was her mind trying to protect itself from what we all wish wasn’t true…” Renji proposed.

 

“Maybe not… what if it’s true? What if he is alive out there someplace?” Ichigo wondered out loud.

 

“What in the world makes you think that’s a possibility?” Renji asked, giving him a confused look.

 

“What if he was injured badly enough that his spiritual pressure was undetectable but still survived the attack?”

 

“Normally I’d say you could be right, but I don’t think that explains Rukia’s violent physical reaction, his spiritual pressure would have had to have been extinguished for that… Don’t you think?”

 

“Probably, but the truth is that lately I’ve begun to sense him too… and it’s getting stronger, which if we knew for sure he was alive would mean he was getting closer, heading toward us. Rukia picked up on it first partly because they were so tight in the old days and because his spiritual pressure is actually pretty similar to hers…”

 

“Or there’s another explanation to all this, maybe his soul is lingering instead of going to the soul society and he’s hanging around near us for some reason…” Renji proposed.

 

“I asked Kisuke about that… he told me that it wasn’t possible, that because he’s the avatar, he’d be reborn immediately and never enter the Soul Society. Plus, if that were true wouldn’t someone have been dispatched to perform a konso on him?” Ichigo asked.

 

“Probably, a Hallow with spiritual pressure as strong as Aang’s could do a lot of damage, someone probably would’ve been sent out immediately to ensure that didn’t happen…” Renji conceded. “The fact is that she’s not going to make her peace with this until we out what actually happened and whether he’s alive or dead…”

 

“I know that…” Ichigo replied. “Either way, something tells me that we’ll get our answer soon…”

 

“I hope so, this is tearing her apart… who knows? Maybe she’s picking up on his successor without realizing it’s a different person…” Renji theorized.

 

“Kisuke also said that there’s no way that she’d be sensing the next avatar either, because while the strength of the spiritual pressure comes from his being the avatar, its exact signature is determined by the soul of the individual…”

 

“Well that rules that out of the realm of possibilities…”

 

“Yeah…it does…” Ichigo agreed.

 


	2. The Signal of Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rukia tries to make herself accept the reality of Aang's death at the hands of Princess Azula in Ba Sing Se, reflecting on the reason that the others believe the royal family's report despite the rumors that he may have survived and despite the invasion on the Day of Black Sun. As Sozin's comet burns its way across the sky, she finally learns the truth.

The Signal of Hope

 

The Day of Sozin’s Comet

Katakura Town (not far from the Fire Nation Capital)

 

Rukia stood on the balcony outside of her room in her family home, in her favorite red kimono, she was trying to see if she could still feel Aang’s spiritual pressure. But the only thing she could feel was the summer breeze. Try as she might, there didn’t seem to be any trace of him, yet she knew what she had felt. What on earth was going on here? Why was his spiritual pressure so hard to find?

 

“Oh Aang…where could you be…and where have you been all this time? Even if the others don’t believe me, I know you’re alive… can’t you show yourself, even to me?” She thought out loud. She looked up at a sky turned orange by the comet. She could feel the immense power it bestowed upon her as a firebender, but while it exhilarating on one level, it was also deeply troubling. She had no idea what Ozai had planned, the nobles had been stripped of their political power and their advisory functions replaced by the military back when she had been a child in Hanging Dog. So despite her being the current head of the Kuchiki clan, she wasn’t privy to that information.

 

The only thing she was sure of, is that the Fire Lord would have to be an idiot to pass up the opportunity to do some major damage. Whatever he had planned for the that day it was likely the reason he had sealed off Katakura town, the one place in all the Fire Nation, where hardly anyone was purely of Fire Nation heritage, with new walls made of Sekkiseki rock, so that even Shinigami couldn’t get through. Clearly he feared that those of mixed ancestry might act on behalf of their non-Fire Nation homeland and try to stop him or even try to help the Avatar, since the rumors of his survival had been persistent enough to cast doubt on his death for those who lacked the evidence she had.

 

It had been her, who had insisted that it was a mission of retribution the day warriors and benders from the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes had tried to invade the capital, that Aang wasn’t part of that, and that it was an attempt by his allies to finish what he had started. But she hadn’t really believed a single word of it, she hadn’t wanted to. She’d been trying to convince herself of where the evidence had led at the time, trying to make herself face the facts in front of her even though they were painful like any warrior, especially a Shinigami ought to be able to… but she hadn’t fooled anyone, especially not herself. Everyone knew she just wasn’t ready to give up. As much as she tried to, and as painful as it was to continue to hope, it hurt too much more to close that door.

 

She sighed heavily. It had been a hundred years since she’d seen Aang. That was before everything had become so complicated, back when the four nations were in harmony and a person could go anywhere they wanted regardless of where they were from, back before Aang knew that he was the avatar and was forced to carry the burden that came with that position, just after she had graduated from the Royal Fire Academy and unbeknown to everyone else, the secret Shinigami Training Program which at that time existed within the academy and similar institutions throughout the world, back when they were barely more than children, excited about their futures, with no reason to think that time and circumstance would soon tear them and their world apart.

 

Stop it! Stop it! You’re torturing yourself… just get it together… accept the facts as they are… let yourself grieve and move on… She screamed at herself inside her head. She forced herself to remember exactly why there was reason to think that…

 

…

 

Back in mid-May, late spring, she had been talking to Renji and Ichigo about what might happen if Aang and the earth kingdom army did in fact come for Fire Lord Ozai, which was widely accepted as what would probably have to happen in order to stop the Fire Nation from winning the war, and should that happen, weather or not and how they should assist. They kept their desire to see the Avatar win strictly amongst themselves for fairly obvious reasons, while Katakura Town was unique in that it had long been something of a melting-pot, it was still Fire Nation territory and their position as Fire Nation citizens meant that they had to be careful about how and when they finally took action, after all, they wouldn’t be much use at all if they were arrested and/or executed for treason.

 

Yet, in spite of everything, the news that was coming out of the rest of the world was becoming more and more encouraging and the mood between them all was optimistic. But then without warning intense pain suddenly enveloped her entire body, it felt like being jabbed in the gut with a sword handle and then being stabbed with a hundred Zanpakutō at once. She doubled over in agony and collapsed.

 

“Rukia?!” Ichigo had yelled. “What’s going on? How can I help you?” he’d asked, but she had been in too much pain to respond and blacked out.

 

It wasn’t until she’d woken up inside Urahara’s shop sixteen days later that Kisuke had explained to all of them what exactly he thought happened.

 

“It seems clear to me that what Rukia experienced was having a linked spiritual pressure extinguished… when two people are closely bonded and or have spiritual pressures with similar compositions, their spirit ribbons become tied together. When two people are linked like that and one of their spiritual pressures is extinguished, in other words if one of them dies, the other feels that death physically. If the death is peaceful the other person will simply black out, but if the death is violent, then the other person will experience up to 80% of their partner’s pain… It sounds to me like the latter is precisely what happened here.” Kisuke had explained.

 

Given that explanation, no one had to tell her who it was that she’d been connected to and lost, but of course they did anyway.

 

“But we’re all here…so who then?” Ichigo asked.

 

“Isn’t it obvious? There’s only one person missing…” Renji had replied.

 

Rukia had done her best to remain stoic, she hadn’t needed Renji to tell her what she already knew. It was actually Uryu who had been taken aback by the news.

 

“But Renji, Kisuke…surely you don’t mean that he’s…”

 

“Unfortunately that’s exactly what we’re saying, after all… Aang is the only person who has a bond with Rukia that’s even remotely close enough to cause this who’s current whereabouts are unaccounted for… and there’s more reason than this to believe that they were linked in this way. It’s been a hundred years, and yet none of us have aged. Why is that? I have a theory… it’s because Aang hasn’t. If Aang and Rukia’s spirit ribbons truly were tied together, then that explains why she’s still physically fourteen, and because Ichigo certainly and most likely Renji are also tied to Rukia, neither of them would have aged either, the connections are a little more difficult to figure out beyond that, but you can see what I’m getting at. It also explains why we began to age once again just as the rumors that Aang had returned to the world began to emerge out of the south.” Kisuke theorized.

 

Rukia knew that what they were saying made sense, especially since at that point when she tried to locate Aang by tracking his spiritual pressure, she couldn’t find him at all; but she just couldn’t take it… So she had vehemently denied it. However, the more time passed, the more she felt forced to face the possibility that they had been right…

 

…

 

“Who am I kidding? The others are right, it’s time to face the facts…” she said to herself, again, only half believing her own words. But almost as soon as she said them, she was overwhelmed by a sudden burst of incredibly strong spiritual pressure. It was so powerful that it brought her to her knees and jammed most of her senses, but there was something about it that was unbelievably, impossibly familiar. Though it was much, much more powerful than it had ever been in the past, she knew without a shred of doubt this time that it could only belong to one person.

 

He’s Alive! She screamed silently.

 

 


End file.
